QtA: Chronothaur's PFC Derrida

The second OC I've accepted into the Battle for Orin story (Quiver to Arrows) for Halo Ammunition.

He was submitted by






Name - Gregor Manuel Derrida
Nickname - "Freddy"
Date of Birth - January 17, 2520
Gender - Male
Height - 6' 1" / 186 cm, average build.
Appearance - Nowadays he is often unshaven and unkept, as colonial Army garrisons tend to get fairly lax on grooming standards outside of formal inspections.
Affiliation - UNSC Army (rifleman)
Unit - 122nd Infantry Division (leaving the more specific unit up to you if you have something thought up already)
Rank - Private First Class
Personality -  PFC Gregor "Freddy" Derrida has jaded and fatalistic outlook on life, having become convinced of the inevitability of his own death as well as the extinction of humanity at large. In terms of skills, he is an unremarkable, utterly average soldier; he does what is expected of him but has never stood out from the millions of Army conscripts like him. While some native, often younger Orin-bound members of his platoon look up to him as a grizzled veteran due to his service history, he can hardly claim to have heroic deeds to his name aside from making it out of a couple of tough spots -- though even that was mostly thanks to factors outside his control. His most impressive feat is once killing an Elite Minor almost all by himself. Accordingly, he doesn't brag about his past -- or talk about it much at all.

Most of his free time is spent browsing Waypoint. Though he is not inherently unsociable, he has few close friends in his current unit as he has grown increasingly afraid to lose people he cares about with each battle, giving him a somewhat hardened and distant outlook -- though he cannot help but crack the rare (often morbid) joke. He once dreamed of becoming a space fighter pilot, though those ambitions have been dashed long ago.

No one knows who started calling him "Freddy", though it is assumed to originate from his passing (some would say nonexistent) resemblance to an online personality who used to be popular on Orin several years back. According to another explanation, the nickname came from the way their platoon leader pronounced "Derrida". Whatever the case, he never liked the nickname but it stuck and spawned a short-lived joke that he was actually the real "Freddy" operating under a fake identity.

Bio - Gregor Derrida was born on Alluvion, where he also spent his childhood and youth under the care of his single mother. Having no pressing civilian obligations at the time, Gregor was drafted into Army service at age 18, serving on his homeworld on garrison duty. For some time, his unit's duties consisted of little more than providing aid to local law enforcement in managing the mounting refugee crisis from time to time. When the Covenant finally invaded Alluvion in 2542, Derrida's company was tasked with covering the evacuation of a major city, though they did not encounter extensive enemy contact until well over a week into the battle. Derrida was among the few scattered UNSC troops that managed to evacuate from Alluvion after it had been declared lost. He lost many of his former comrades at arms in the process, scarring him deeply.

He was subsequently transferred to the waystation colony of Pharos and stationed there with the 71st Infantry Division until the colony's fall to the Covenant in early 2544; having deemed Pharos an acceptable loss, the UNSC did not mount an extensive defense and largely focused on asset denial before pulling out. Still, Army losses were extreme on those denial ops (largely due to plasma artillery) and few members of Derrida's unit made it out. After the battle, PFC Derrida was transferred to the 122nd on Orin, where he has been stationed since.